


Exceeding His Grasp

by Raletha



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Canon Related, Community: 30_lemons, Drama, Erotica, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Newtypes, Post-Canon, Romance, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-14
Updated: 2011-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-20 10:17:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raletha/pseuds/Raletha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Postscript arc] [30 Lemons] After the war, Trowa has stayed with Quatre to help him recover from his injuries.  Increasingly restless, he finds he cannot stay with Quatre despite their bond.  Original story circa 2002, rewritten 2007, latest revision 2011.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exceeding His Grasp

**Author's Note:**

> This is yet another revision of my first fanfic, first published on tqml in June of 2002 and titled "Wait For Me". Third time's the charm. I rewrote the ending again. I think it is better and finally done without significant reservations on my part. It only took 9 years!
> 
> Previous version also submitted to Livejournal's 30_lemons theme 2: Bottoms Up, or, "Surprise! Guess Who's on Top Tonight?"

The dense carpet muffled Trowa's footsteps as he approached Quatre's open office door. Today in particular it felt like a violation to walk in his heavy boots across the champagne surface. Behind him he heard the soft _clack-clack_ of Madeline, Quatre's personal secretary, returning to her typing. From Quatre's office came the melodic chimes of Chopin's _Raindrop Prelude_. Quatre always listened to it while he was working with figures; it helped him concentrate.

Quatre didn't like to be disturbed while he was checking the accounts. It didn't matter that it wasn't his job to do such work; Quatre insisted he review such records from all departments on a weekly basis to better familiarise himself with the workings of Winner Enterprises, Incorporated. His employees--especially upper management--respected him more for it, it seemed, although it habitually kept him late at the office on Fridays. Other things kept him late on other nights. Working through past years' records Quatre restricted to the weekends.

Trowa paused. He nearly turned around--whether to leave or to take a seat in the waiting area he did not know. The hesitation, the reluctance, was like instinct. He'd done enough waiting though, and leaving here to wait until another time to address the situation would likely mean another week turning to another fortnight turning to another month of this restless stagnation. He leaned against the wall next to Quatre's door and closed his eyes.

Indecision was new; this ambivalence was new, and the irrational trepidation seizing Trowa's heart and flinging it against his ribs was wholly novel. It was nothing like what he'd experienced during war. Matters of life and death he could understand; the fear of death was a familiar companion. But this matter of sanity, self, or some other more nebulous need fed a more complex anxiety.

It seemed petty to Trowa, this desire of his. He'd tried to dismiss it, to rationalise himself out of its influence, but it crept back always. He needed to leave. And he needed to tell Quatre.

Today was as good a day as any--perhaps a better day than most. But that did not ease Trowa's urge to be anywhere but standing here, outside Quatre's office, assembling words into arrangements he barely understood, to express this need to Quatre that he could hardly express in silence to himself.

It would have been more appealing to still be waiting in the restaurant. He could simply have called on his cell to remind Quatre of their date, rather than come here in person to despoil the clean carpets and calm music. Well. He was here now.

He stepped into the open doorway. Action was the way to move ahead. That he could address. Once he knew his intention, he could plan, and the only way to know its outcome was to take the planned action. Time was the enemy of decisiveness. Maybe that was his trouble now? He had too much time to think and vacillate and interrogate himself. In battle, death and defeat always panted close behind. They allowed no time to ruminate and forced action until thought was instinct and doubt fled.

But when Trowa lifted his gaze, his doubts roosted heavily upon him, and their sharp talons dug into his resolve. Centered in the wide glass window behind his wide wooden desk Quatre sat, his head bent over his paperwork. His right hand was raised, poised as in mid-thought, clutching his pencil (Quatre insisted on doing arithmetic by hand) and the Colony's late afternoon sun shone on him, cutting a sharp-edged swathe of light across his desk, turning both his blond hair and the white sheets of paper luminous. He'd removed his suit jacket and sat in his shirtsleeves and tie. Quatre's shirt was dove grey, and his tie looked to Trowa like an Impressionistic portrayal of cherry blossoms.

Quatre's left hand rested lightly on the desk, and his fingers absently tapped against the surface as if playing along with the music--or else keeping track of some running total in his imagination. He appeared the epitome of relaxed concentration, and again Trowa experienced an impulse to step back, turn away, and leave before Quatre even realised he was there. Instead he knocked lightly on the doorframe.

"Come in," Quatre mumbled, lowering his pencil to the paper and scribing something with care. He did not look up to see who had requested his attention, but instead swapped his current page for another and stared at it.

Trowa took a single step across the threshold and stood quietly, waiting for--willing--Quatre to look up. The office smelled--as it always did--of jasmine, and more faintly of lanolin (the carpets were wool). Trowa never noticed the smell of the carpets anywhere in the building but in Quatre's office. The rest of the building's odors were dominated by hot electronics, toner, and ink.

"Madeline?" Quatre said, "Do know what happened to the Novem--?" He broke off as he finally looked up. "Trowa? What are you...? I wasn't expecting to see you until--" Quatre glanced at his wall clock. "Oh, damn." He dropped his pencil to the desktop and ran a hand through his hair. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry."

The pencil rolled off the edge of the desk just as Quatre pushed back his chair and stood.

"I know, it's okay," Trowa said and met Quatre's sheepish smile with what he hoped was a reassuring one. But it felt peculiar--like his cheeks had turned to wax.

"No. It's not," Quatre insisted as he retrieved his jacket from the stand by the door. He shrugged it on and placed a hand on Trowa's forearm. The warmth permeated Trowa's sleeve immediately. "But I am sorry."

"You already apologised," Trowa replied, letting his gaze slip free of Quatre's. He shifted his arm, dislodging Quatre's hand.

"Then what is it? There's something else."

"It's..." He sighed, and this time he couldn't evade Quatre's eyes. "We need to talk," Trowa said and resented instantly how much like a cliché of a doomed relationship he sounded.

Quatre peered at him as if trying to read his thoughts on his retinas, as if staring through his pupils at just the right angle with just the right light would reveal them--as tiny inscribed words. Trowa turned his head to the side, and his hair fell between them.

"Over a late lunch then?" Quatre proposed, this time speaking more softly.

"Sure."

Trowa jammed his hands in his pockets and followed as Quatre led them from his office. When they passed Madeline's desk Trowa offered a short nod to the woman.

"Going out, sir?" she asked Quatre.

"Yes, Madeline, to lunch," answered Quatre.

"And when will you be back, sir?"

"When I'm back, and absolutely no earlier," he replied with a grin.

"Very well. Enjoy your meal, Mr. Winner." Then she returned Trowa's nod with a genuine smile, "Mr. Barton."

They made their way to the elevators, wending their way among the artfully arranged desks and potted plants (most were real, not silk). Trowa walked two steps behind Quatre, giving him the space to greet employees--always by their first name and always with a smile and some enquiry or bit of small talk tailored specifically for that individual: a question after a child's recent dance recital or a congratulations on a spouse's success or a 'well-done' on a recent project.

How Quatre recalled such minutiae in addition to the faces and names both baffled and impressed Trowa. The long hours Quatre had devoted to Winner Enterprises--not just behind his desk, but also in meetings and dropping in on water-cooler conversations--were succeeding in demonstrating to the corporation that it was indeed under new management. Fresh leadership and new ideas had arrived like the first breeze of spring.

Seeing Quatre here and now, in his elegant suit, smiling and laughing and shaking hands, Trowa's memories of Quatre in the later days of the war, wan and worn, exhausted and battling his own encroaching doubts, were like a dream.

In his mind Trowa struggled to reconcile this Quatre with the one of his memory, the boy who had been sick (to the point of vomiting) of death and destruction, who had been tired (to the point of tears) of fighting, and who had nevertheless steadfastly gripped, with broken nails and bleeding fingertips, onto the tattered remnants of his beleaguered ideals.

But then, it was this same inexhaustible character that drove Quatre to work with single-minded dedication to demonstrate his diligence, trustworthiness, and care--that his age and presumed lack of experience were not an issue. Thus, as Trowa watched the employees responding to Quatre here and now, with enthusiasm and respect--and even affection--Trowa doubted again his recent decision.

It was no longer necessary that he remain. They had been spending little enough time together; Trowa could no longer define his role in Quatre's life as anything meaningful or essential. Quatre had healed, and he no longer needed Trowa there, two steps behind him, waiting in a café for a forgotten rendezvous; or staying up to welcome him home in the evenings.

There was nothing Quatre needed that Trowa could yet give. Quatre entered a world to which Trowa feared even he might not adapt. Even now, making his way through the WEI offices, Trowa felt as if he were on some foreign world with its strange, well tailored and coiffed aliens bustling about with datapads and file folders. He wondered what they thought of the odd boy who occasionally moved among them in the wake of their shining leader.

However, once they were alone in the elevator, once its doors had slid shut and the floor began to sink, both the shine and Quatre's smile faded. He looked to Trowa again with confusion in his eyes.

It was an expression more easily placed alongside Trowa's wartime memories of Quatre, and it urged him to reassure. Never mind, Quatre, it was nothing to be worried about. Everything was perfectly fine. So what had been wrong then? He was simply worrying about contacting Catherine again, that was all. It would be wonderful to have lunch together today though. Especially this late, after the lunchtime crowds had left.

Yes, it was much nicer this way. Wasn't it?

 

After the waitress had taken their orders and their menus, Trowa felt Quatre's gaze settle on him. "You wanted to talk about something?" Quatre asked, his voice friendly and bright.

"Yeah, I do. I..." he began, his gaze fixed not on his friend but on his own hands. He toyed with the drops of condensation pooling at the base of his water glass and seeping into the starched white linen it rested upon. Trowa's eyes begin to burn as if he'd gotten shampoo in them. His throat struggled to work around the lump lodged there to speak, but faltered.

"Trowa, what is it?" Quatre reached across the table to clasp Trowa's damp fingertips. "You're--" Quatre stopped, took a breath, and when he resumed speaking, his voice was soft, almost a whisper. "You're worrying me." The grip on his fingers tightened. "At least look at me? Please?"

Trowa did look up, to find his gaze snared by Quatre's familiar one. There he saw Quatre's concern, although Quatre still smiled. Trowa forced himself to look away.

"Quatre," he began once more and found something steadying in those familiar syllables. Nevertheless, a wave of numbness washed his skull as he pushed the words forward. His lips felt like a puppet's; he couldn't feel them when he spoke. "I'm going back to L3."

A pause, and then a neutral, obvious, "You're leaving?"

A nod answered that query, and the part of Trowa that resonated with Quatre contracted sharply.

"For how long?"

Trowa submerged the ghost of Quatre's incomprehension; it bled too easily into his own. "I don't know. A long time maybe. I don't know. I can't--" Trowa swallowed. "--be here any longer."

"I don't understand," Quatre said slowly.

"I don't know what I'm doing here any more. Or even what I should be doing."

Confusion drew Quatre's eyebrows together. "There's nothing here you should be doing. I thought you wanted this time--to sort out what you did want?"

"I did. But I don't know what to do here. How to be here." Words were useless, Trowa thought. He couldn't even explain it to himself: some abstract emotional imperative.

"I thought you stayed because--because, you know, how you feel. For me. I thought we were doing this together. I thought..."

"So did I. But, Quatre," Trowa said, and paused. He looked at his wrists, resting on the table: clean hands, a fancy wristwatch, and the cuffs of a designer shirt. "I don't recognise myself here. Not any more. And I feel--I don't know--suffocated or something."

"By me?" asked Quatre.

"Not you." Trowa sighed. It made him feel ungrateful, to reject these things, the designer shirt, the fancy watch... But he wasn't a mercenary any longer. Quatre wasn't paying him to stay--the gifts weren't coercion or incentive, they were just Quatre. "I hardly see you as it is, really. You couldn't be suffocating me. It's everything else, I guess."

Helpless, Trowa turned his hands palm up and shrugged. "It's... It's me, mostly." Trowa winced around his forced smile, nothing he said felt like it meant what he wanted it to, but he could find no other words with which to express--with which to disentangle--the knot in his heart.

"I'm sorry, Trowa," said Quatre, speaking softly--earnestly. "I'm sorry for not being around, for not spending more time with you. I've been so overwhelmed. I'm sorry, I--"

"It's not your fault, it's--"

"How can it not be my fault? I keep hurting you. I know I do. " Quatre said and then continued more softly, half to himself, "Why do I keep hurting you? What's wrong with me?"

"You're not, you don't. You have things that need your attention right now. I know this. What you're doing is important. If I'm feeling useless, it's my own problem."

"No, I've been ignoring you too much, and forgetting things--like today," Quatre insisted.

"You're busy. I don't expect to be the centre of your universe."

Quatre sighed, exasperated. "Damn it, Trowa, why can't you admit I've screwed this up?"

Trowa looked at him for a few breaths. "Is that what you want? To have messed up?"

Silence met that comment. Quatre sat back and fixed him with a hard stare, his mouth a thin line of displeasure. When Trowa failed to continue, he spoke, "How can you say that?"

"It's a valid question."

"Are you trying to play counselor to me?"

"Of course not." Trowa sighed; he didn't like the sharp edge to Quatre's tone. "But did it occur to you that maybe neither of us is to blame?" He paused to give Quatre a steady look. "Not everything wrong with the universe is your fault. Sometimes things just don't work out the way you--or I--want them to or expect them to. Sometimes you have to understand that the only place you have any real control is over yourself."

"From psychiatrist to philosopher?"

"I've had a lot of time to think."

Silence. Then Quatre spoke again, this time timidly, "Are we breaking up?"

"I don't know," Trowa sighed again, and the energy drained from his voice, "I don't know. It's not like I've done anything like this before." He stopped to take a sip of water, to bolster himself for the next question. "Do you want to...?" He couldn't say it; he couldn't ask it.

"No." was Quatre's whispered reply, barely audible.

"Me neither," Trowa managed to smile in relief. "But I need to be on my own for a while. I need to figure things out."

"And I need to do some growing up, I guess," Quatre laughed, but there was little humour in the sound. "It's ridiculous, don't you think? We've done so much. But we can't do this?"

The two shared a smile, and the tension between them eased momentarily, until they both sobered with the realisation of what was ahead. They lapsed into a difficult silence for the remainder of the meal.

 

"Welcome home... Trowa," said the door in its polite mechanical tones after Trowa had pressed his thumb into the keypad. With a click, the lock released and he stepped into the spacious foyer of Quatre's penthouse condominium.

Home. Was it? Trowa didn't know how to answer that question; he knew only that he still sought an answer. Returning to Catherine was the best place Trowa could think to start. She remained the closest he had to family. And he had made a promise to her to return alive.

No, this was not where he needed to be. It was Quatre's: Quatre's new shiny home to go with Quatre's new shiny job. Once Quatre recovered from his injuries, he immediately wanted to abandon the Winner familial estate with its museum-like halls of antiques and herds of too-polite servants. He wanted to find his own place for himself.

Quatre may have abandoned the family manor, but its legacy remained with him. Quatre had yet to find peace for himself outside his work, and Trowa understood that he had little hope of helping Quatre find that kind of peace when he, himself, still wandered so uncertain in the post-war world. He needed to find, perhaps even make, his own peace as well.

It would have been nice to stay here, in Quatre's world. But wishing for what could not be served to do nothing but postpone the inevitable, and since Trowa did not know when Quatre would be back tonight (they had gone their separate ways after lunch with Quatre insisting he would be home early, but that he did have some pressing business he had to take care of first), Trowa deemed this a good opportunity to collect his few belongings and pack.

 

That evening, from the library where he'd been replacing books, Trowa heard the lock click on the front door accompanied by the inevitable: "Welcome home... Quatre." Trowa glanced at the clock. 17:34 it read. About six hours earlier than usual.

"Hi? I'm home," Quatre's voice came from the foyer. "Um, I picked up takeaway. It's Indian. I hope that's okay. I know how much you like it—and since they don't have anything authentic on L3- "

Footsteps moved into the kitchen accompanied by the rustle of bags.

Trowa slid the last book in his stack back onto the shelf and went downstairs.

"Trowa? You're still here, aren't you?"

"I'm still here," Trowa spoke softly, entering the kitchen from the hall. "It smells good."

"Ah, I'm glad," Quatre said, turning to face Trowa and smiling weakly. He turned back to the food, removing two shallow plastic containers, and two small paper bags. "I got some _samosas_ and _bhajees_... um," he moved to the cupboard to retrieve some plates. Trowa could feel Quatre's agitation, could see it in the way his hands trembled and could hear it in the nervous monologue. "And, uh, that's _Palak Paneer_ ," he pointed to first one container, then the other. "And the other one is that thing with the cauliflower and potatoes and stuff... I can never remember the name." Quatre pulled out the cutlery drawer with a loud clatter.

" _Aloo Gobi_."

"Oh, yeah... heh. Stupid of me to forget," Quatre fixed his gaze on the bouquet of silverware in his hand.

Trowa moved to stand behind Quatre, resting his hands on his shoulders. Quatre relaxed slightly and leaned into his grasp. "It'll be okay," Trowa murmured against Quatre's hair. He tried to convince himself.

"I... I guess."

"We can still visit each other, you know, and talk on the phone."

"Yeah," Quatre sighed deeply. "I'm just- I thought I'd lost you before, and it was my fault. It was the worst feeling in the universe. I can't lose you again like that."

Trowa ignored the guilt from Quatre. He couldn't deal with that too right now. "You're not losing me." Trowa bent his head to kiss Quatre behind the ear.

"I don't want to." Quatre reached up to cover Trowa's hand with his own. "At least Catherine will be happy to see you."

"Yeah, she will."

"I'm going to miss you though. A lot. Even though I haven't been around much lately, I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too," Trowa offered, struggling not to give in to his own melancholy. "Come on. Let's eat before it gets cold."

They didn't speak during dinner. Quatre fixed his attention on his food, and Trowa tried to pretend it was a comfortable silence. Afterward, Trowa cleared the dishes while Quatre put the leftover food in the refrigerator. When they'd each run out of ways to avoid conversation, they sat together in the living room. Quatre sat on the sofa and looked out the window at the blue dusk settling over the colony. Trowa sat in a chair and studied the patterns in the tiles of the fireplace.

Quatre spoke first: "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry."

Trowa closed his eyes. "Stop apologising to me. It's all right."

"I can't, Trowa. I am sorry, and I want you to know that. Why can't you accept an apology?"

It was the guilt again. Always, Quatre would come back to the guilt. Slowly a sort of chill crept along Trowa's skin. The tone of Quatre's voice, the insistence--Trowa opened his eyes. Yes, he could even see it in Quatre's face. "You want me to be angry with you, don't you?" Trowa said softly.

"Why would I--?"

"You do. I was right. You want this to be your fault."

"I..."

"Why, Quatre? Why would you want that?" Even as he spoke in disbelief, Trowa saw the answer in Quatre's wide-eyed silence though, the answer Quatre couldn't speak: In Quatre's mind, Quatre deserved it.

Quatre said nothing.

"You want me to blame you for something? Or yell at you?"

Still Quatre said nothing.

"I'm not that person. I'm not..." _Who?_ Trowa wondered, _Quatre's father?_ "I'm not that person."

"You should be angry with me," Quatre murmured at last, "after the way I've treated you. What I've done."

"Do you think I have any right to feel morally superior to you? You don't know all the things I've done. If you did, I doubt you'd care for me as you do."

"I could never hate you."

"Then you should understand. Don't try to make me be someone I'm not. I'm not angry with you. I never have been."

Quatre shrugged and looked as if there were something more he wanted to say, but he never said it.

"Just. Stop apologising to me."

 

Later that evening, Trowa sat on the edge of the bed fumbling with the hem of his pyjama top. Dark green satin twisted between his fingers. Quatre had given him the pyjamas--to complement his pretty eyes, Quatre had said. Trowa had never thought about whether the clothes he wore went with his eyes or whether his eyes were 'pretty'. His melancholy feelings were becoming harder to ignore.

Quatre stood backlit in the doorway of the _en suite_ bathroom in his oversized pyjamas and dressing gown. The stark white of the silk nightclothes under the dark blue velvet of the robe gave the illusion that Quatre was still somehow dressed to do business. "When will you go?" Quatre asked.

"Tomorrow, maybe, if I can get a shuttle," Trowa said. "I called a travel agent today. I'll be traveling stand-by."

"That soon." It was not a question.

They remained in silence for a time. The silence was so dense that Trowa found himself experiencing a sympathetic discord of Quatre's emotions. They augmented and reflected his own, and he knew that whatever Quatre sensed from him was more vividly felt in return, more difficult. He couldn't tell how much of what he felt was him and how much was Quatre. Or how much was both of them, fused together in some weird psychic ether between them. However it worked, it was unfair to Quatre; he didn't need to suffer the emotions of others--especially not Trowa's.

Dimly, Trowa perceived Quatre moving, coming nearer--bare feet silent on plush carpet--to stand before him. Slender fingers twined in his hair, coaxing him to lift his head, coaxing him to tilt his head back to meet Quatre's gaze. Trowa found him calm, at least in appearance, his features nearly void of expression. Except for the glisten of moisture, creeping from the corner of Quatre's eye, striving to become a tear. Trowa made himself meet Quatre's gaze without flinching.

Quatre stroked his hair back from his face, and Trowa let Quatre look at him like this--exposed. Trowa felt tightness behind his eyes, and his vision blurred, but no tears came. Quatre leaned near to kiss him chastely on the forehead. "I'm sorry," he murmured.

"Quat—"

"Shh. Let me apologise for this."

Quatre lips caressed his eyebrows, his cheekbones, and, with a fleeting grin, his nose. Trowa returned the grin until Quatre kissed him on the mouth, less chaste. His lips were so pliant and warm, it took Trowa little time to pull Quatre nearer--to half-stand, half-sit in Trowa's lap--and deepen the kiss. He inhaled deeply, inhaling as much of Quatre as he could, like something of Quatre could permeate his cells, let him understand more, let him feel like he belonged here. How could he leave this?

Breathless, Quatre pulled away. "Let me," he whispered harshly. "Please. Let me take you tonight."

Trowa stiffened. Implicit in Quatre's request was something they avoided, another thing driving Quatre's guilt. The thing they hadn't even talked about enough for it to have its own mental designation for Trowa. They had no language between them either for that night. Trowa remembered it though, Quatre fucking him that first time. Quatre believing that because he enjoyed Trowa fucking him, the reciprocal was a tautology.

It wasn't that Quatre was insensitive as a lover. Trowa knew this. He didn't blame Quatre. He knew that evening had turned into a bad one for Quatre too. Though Quatre's reasons were different: an unexpected midnight encounter with the Winner family's head maid in the kitchen, and her subsequent harsh judgement of Quatre's then obvious activities with Trowa, had rattled Quatre. By the time he came back to his room (midnight snack forgotten), to Trowa waiting for him, he was hurt, angry, and rebellious. His virgin technique had suffered. His own upset had blinded him to Trowa's alarm and discomfort at his immoderate intensity and pace.

Trowa had been vulnerable and, however accidentally, hurt. Since then, Quatre had never asked to penetrate Trowa again, never even indicated he wanted to. For this Trowa was glad. He was happy with things as they were sexually, and he knew how much Quatre enjoyed being the receptive partner. He hadn't expected this request tonight.

"Trowa?"

Trowa didn't realise he'd looked away until Quatre said his name, bringing him back from the memory. Trowa registered Quatre's tight smile, the earnest creasing of his brow. He knew he needed to accept this as well as the apology tonight--whether he felt it was warranted didn't matter. So for Quatre, tonight before he left, he consented to both Quatre's body and his apology. And Trowa hoped, if he let Quatre take him this time, Quatre would receive some more meaningful sense of the forgiveness that was already his. He smiled. "All right."

The tension melted from Quatre's face, resolved into a brighter smile. "It'll be better this time, I promise," he said and dipped his head to kiss Trowa's neck. "I just," he murmured between shivery kisses. "I want to be able to show you how good you make me feel."

"Okay." Trowa sighed and took Quatre's hands, to draw Quatre onto the bed as he fell to his back.

"Okay," echoed Quatre, coming onto the bed with Trowa to straddle his hips, their fingers still tangled together, Quatre's lips sliding into the hollow at the base of Trowa's throat.

"I love the way you smell," said Quatre.

Trowa smiled into the air, eyes closed, letting his awareness focus on just Quatre's mouth, kissing and nuzzling up to his jaw, wandering to his earlobe to nibble and lick. Ticklish, it made Trowa shudder.

"Good?" asked Quatre.

"Yeah," said Trowa.

Quatre kissed him again: tender slip of tongue between his lips, slow and thorough.

Breath, warm and humid, puffed over Trowa's face as Quatre pulled back, and Trowa kept his eyes shut. Their fingers disentangled, and Trowa felt the tugging of Quatre unfastening the buttons of his pyjama top, the wash of air over his bared skin as Quatre parted the garment.

Softness of lips manifested on his chest, down his breastbone, over his belly--warm suction, sharp graze of teeth. Fingers resolved at his waistband, the heat of a palm pressed over his cock, and he arched against that touch. Quatre's mouth breathed and kissed lower, down to meet his hands. Quatre's hands fumbled and pulled Trowa's pyjama bottoms down his thighs; Quatre's tongue flicked over Trowa's cockhead.

And then gone--just a tease. Trowa groaned, lifting his hips and half sitting to add his efforts to the removal of his pyjama bottoms. Quatre's weight shifted, and they grappled together with Trowa's pyjamas, Trowa with his eyes still firmly shut. At last, he lay nude and breathing heavily, and he could feel Quatre's warmth still wrapped in velvet and silk above him and next to him and moving all around him.

Quatre's hands pressed his thighs apart; Quatre's weight settled between Trowa's spread legs: velvet between his thighs. The position of vulnerability sped cold up Trowa's spine, prickling through his awareness. He tried to slow his hastening breaths, but in vain, for Quatre's mouth found his cock, swallowed him in one swift, slick movement, devoured him into dark, liquid bliss. His chill dissipated into heat.

It always amazed Trowa how noisy Quatre was when performing fellatio. Quatre, for all his polite and fastidious table manners was an enthusiastic sucker of cock. For his part, Trowa enjoyed his partner's evident relish as expressed through the lascivious slurps, wet suckles, and airy pops. Trowa twisted his fingers in Quatre's hair and surrendered to it.

And then, too soon, Quatre's mouth was on the move again; hungry lips and playful tongue slathered his balls with attention. Quatre pushed his thighs further apart, pushed his legs back and up. Exposed him more. Trowa opened his eyes, blinked to clear the blur, and looked down his body to meet Quatre's gaze.

"This is still okay?" Quatre panted, smiling a little in hope, frowning a little in concern, and flushing a lot with arousal.

"Yeah," Trowa answered. "However you want to do it," he murmured, and then he added, "I trust you."

Quatre nodded and the concern eased from his features. He relinquished his hold on Trowa's body long enough to shrug off his robe, letting the dark folds of velvet pool around his folded legs. He lowered his head once more, kissed the back of Trowa's raised thigh, rested his forehead where he had kissed, and then touched with shy fingertips the tense hole nestled between Trowa's buttocks.

Trowa glanced to the night table, spotted the lubricant and reached for it. He passed it down to Quatre, fell back into the pillows, and closed his eyes once more. "I trust you," he said again.

Arousal faded with the practicality of preparation. Trowa wished he could enjoy this as Quatre did, but Quatre's pushing of a well-lubed finger into him didn't feel all that sexy. It felt exactly like what it was. He had a finger stuck up his ass.

"Try to relax," Quatre said, and Trowa remembered to breathe. Breathing helped.

But, gentle probings, even welcomed, still felt strange and intrusive. When Quatre pulled his hand away, Trowa felt guilty for being so relieved.

"Maybe you should lie on your stomach?" Quatre proposed.

Trowa opened his eyes and nodded. As he rolled to his stomach, Quatre passed him a pair of pillows. "Here," Quatre said, helping Trowa arrange them beneath his hips. "Is that comfortable enough?"

It wasn't. Despite the addition of cushions, it was too much like the first time, and this heightened sense of helplessness sapped any eroticism Trowa hoped to foster. "Wait," he said, pulled the cushions from beneath his hips and raised himself to hands and knees. That felt better--less passive anyway. "Okay?"

"Yeah," said Quatre and Trowa heard his smile. Then Quatre's hands returned to his body. Two slippery fingers wedged him open once more, and Quatre's other hand wrapped slick about his cock. Discomfort and pleasure vied for dominance in Trowa's mind. Quatre stroked his shaft slowly a few times before speeding his hand and masturbating Trowa with clear intent. Quatre's fingers inside him twisted and shifted and then withdrew. Nothing replaced them immediately, and an impending orgasm knotted tight in Trowa's balls.

His body, caught in the dominating stretch toward release, did not register the first pressure and spread of penetration. Quatre was already inside him, edging deeper, when Trowa expanded back to a broader awareness. His interrupted orgasm ached even as his erection faded. Quatre held him as he softened. All he could feel now was the fullness crammed inside his rectum. Too visceral to be sexy, he felt like he had to use the toilet.

"Breathe," Quatre said. "Breathe, Trowa."

Trowa breathed, and Quatre didn't move but for his hands rubbing Trowa's hips and lower back to soothe. Slowly, so slowly, sensation changed from invasion to simple presence. It seemed organs reordered themselves, melding about the shape of Quatre within him. There was acceptance, not resistance. "Okay," Trowa said. "I'm okay."

But when Quatre pulled out, Trowa flinched away from the push back in. "Sorry," he said.

Quatre bent over him and pressed his lips to Trowa's skin. "No apologies," he said. Quatre's next push in, Trowa stilled himself to meet. And the next. And the next. The thick shift and slide, as Trowa relaxed into Quatre's careful rhythm, became almost hypnotic. Trowa closed his eyes, hung his head, and let his muscles relax enough that his body swayed with each stroke of Quatre's cock.

And then, "You feel... Oh, Trowa..." A stifled groan.

Good. Yeah, it felt good, Trowa realised. With each drag of Quatre's flesh through his insides, more sensation roused: exotic flashes of pleasure which brought murmurs of 'oh', and 'yes', and 'don't stop' to Trowa's lips. The orgasm Trowa believed lost Quatre assiduously nudged back to life. Coaxed, drawn, and spun, it reformed, familiar and strange at once. "More," Trowa gasped.

As Quatre responded with quicker, surer jerks of his hips, the discrete flashes blurred into one another, buzzing into a bright continuity. Amazed, incredulous even, Trowa realised he was going to come soon, and Quatre wasn't touching his cock. He was going to come from being fucked. Just that. He choked on his incredulity even as his body banished it. His gasps turned to ragged sobs as he came, and--incredibly--came and came more; deep, so deep, _god_ so deep, and different.

Some several heartbeats--or a lifetime--later, Trowa realised he had missed Quatre's orgasm. Rueful, he twisted about as their bodies separated. He reached back and touched himself between his buttocks, soft and open, wet with lube and Quatre's semen. Quatre touched his cheek, fingertips coaxing their faces closer for a kiss.

After the kiss, "Better?" Quatre asked, setting his sweaty forehead against Trowa's.

Trowa completed his twist and slumped to the mattress, pulling Quatre down to rest atop him. "I liked it," Trowa said, " a lot."

"Thank you," Quatre replied, and rolled off Trowa to sprawl next to him, chest heaving.

Neither spoke for a time. Guilt twisted within, and Trowa opened his mouth to apologise. He stopped though, almost laughed at the sudden Quatre-esque impulse. Instead he asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," said Quatre: the automatic reply. "Will you stay? At least a little longer? Maybe," Quatre rolled to his side to face Trowa, "at least think about it?"

Trowa closed his eyes and shook his head. "I can't, Quatre."

"But I thought...?"

Realisation sunk hard and indigestible into Trowa's stomach, "It wasn't about this."

Quatre lay on his back once more. "Then what is it about, Trowa? I don't understand."

"I don't understand either. I just know." Trowa laid his hand over his heart, where he felt that knowledge, sure even if he wasn't. "I know when it's time for me to move on."

"Why do you have to? Haven't you been happy here? I've tried to give you everything."

"What I need isn't anything you can give me."

"I'm sorry," Quatre said.

This time, the apology didn't hurt. Perhaps because it was so uneccessary, or perhaps because it was simple words of sympathy and not an imposition of guilt. The words didn't stick and ache, they just were there, warm and softly spoken. "It's okay," Trowa said, "It's not like I don't want to be here with you. It's just." Trowa shrugged again, reached to take Quatre's hand. "It's like..." He tried again to find any words for it, a metaphor or something.

"What's it like?"

"Have you ever felt something, bone deep, something you couldn't name or quantify, but it was there, aching--like hunger or lust or fear."

"I don't know that I have."

"It's like that, something I don't know how to satisfy, but I can't help but feel I need to, so it'll go away, this emptiness inside me."

Quatre turned toward Trowa and propped himself up on an elbow, he reached out a hand and pushed it beneath the hand Trowa rested upon his own heart. "I don't think I do understand, Trowa." He dropped his head and pressed his lips to the back of Trowa's hand. His bangs tickled Trowa's skin. "Maybe I _can't_ ," he said against Trowa's knuckles. Quatre's shoulders hitched in a shrug, and he sighed, warm puff of breath. "But I trust you to know yourself well enough. I can try to accept this, I can do that much for you."

Trowa had to swallow before he could reply, "Thank you, Quat." His other hand he pushed through Quatre's sweat curled hair, wove the locks around his fingers, tight enough to cut off blood flow. He pulled, tugging Quatre by his hair, up his body, so he could kiss his gratitude into Quatre's mouth.

Quatre whimpered low in the back of his throat, almost a growl, and deepened the kiss, accepting Trowa's gratitude, his mouth growing fierce, daring to demand something in return. He raised himself and rolled forward, sliding to align his body over Trowa's. As his weight settled, Trowa felt the pulse of Quatre's half hard cock and his rising body heat, felt himself responding in kind. Quatre withdrew from the kiss just enough to whisper, "Trowa?"

"Yeah?" Trowa freed his hand from between their bodies, slid his open palm down the plane of Quatre's back, coming to rest in the hollow of the small of his back, his pinky finger reaching that little bit further to stroke where the curve reversed, beginning the swell of Quatre's buttocks. "Again?"

A trace of sadness remained in Quatre's gaze, but Trowa was glad to see his smile, genuine if not wide. And then the smile quirked as Quatre's skated his legs out to straddle Trowa. "Yeah."

Returning the smile, Trowa slid his his hands down to cup the backs of Quatre's thighs, tugging Quatre up his body until he could reach between the cheeks of Quatre's backside. Quatre stretched a hand out for the lube.

Prep was perfunctory--lube only--for Quatre was impatient. Too soon he was bracing himself with one hand above Trowa and gripping Trowa's cock in his other as he bore down on it. Without being stretched, Quatre was vice-tight, and Trowa could hardly breathe with the suffocating grip cinching down around his cock. He had a terrifying thought that, despite Quatre's nominal acceptance, that he was now hurting himself on purpose as some kind of wrong-headed yen for penance. Trowa finally managed to suck a shallow breath and asked, "Quatre?"

Quatre's head hung low, his eyes pinched shut, his mouth open for deep breaths. He shuddered, but didn't stop his slow descent. "I'm good," he said. " _So good_ , he groaned. He lifted his head and opened his eyes. He was flushed from his cheeks to his chest and his pupils were huge, eclipsing almost completely the blue of his irises. "Your cock," he sighed. "I love it, Trowa. Want to feel you. Feel everything. Love you inside me. Just..." He smiled raggedly. "...love you."

"Me too," Trowa said, it was hard to be eloquent in thought or word when it was like this with Quatre. He grabbed Quatre's hips, yanked him down the rest of the way flush onto his cock. Quatre let out a sharp cry, but it wasn't of pain. Then Trowa pushed Quatre back up and off, not all the way, just a few inches, but far enough to roll his hips up as he pulled him back down again, snug and tight. Perfect. "Love you, too."

Quatre grabbed his wrists, his grip upon them almost as tight as his ass. "Yeah, Trowa. Fuck me." He moved just enough to help Trowa, but let Trowa lead, let Trowa's hands guide and pace the rise and fall and the thrust and slide.

Slowly, Trowa moved their bodies together, each roll and tug accompanied by a deep inhale. Exhale on the push back up, the slide back out. Slow, but not easy, with his body hungering to go faster and harder, to race for its climax deep inside Quatre. But he knew, knew it would be even better like this. A concentrated even cadence of breath and motion and pleasure. And then he felt it, the flickering candlelight of Quatre's own desire, the ache of his yearning, empty even as he was being filled.

Trowa closed his eyes, but didn't stop the steady march of his love making. Didn't falter one beat as he reached into Quatre's emptiness with more than just his body, reached with himself to try to fill the void. But it was never enough, not the sex, not the reaching. It was never _quite_ enough, there was always skin and the ethereal membrane of Self barring any true completion. There were always places that exceeded his grasp. Even so, they could get close, so close.

"Trowa," Quatre moaned, tapering off into a whisper. "I can feel you, I feel so much."

Through the backwash and echo of Quatre's empathy, his so-called 'heart of space', Trowa could feel him reaching back, straining to meet, seeking and striving, perhaps trying to find the mysterious source of Trowa's need, wanting to know it and understand it. To look at it and turn it over in his mind and in his heart, to feel it as if it were his own.

But the orgasm coiling up tight in Trowa's balls anchored him in his body, the velvet heat and stroke of their physical union tethered him, restricting his psychic reach. He knew it was the same for Quatre. It didn't always happen like this, but the times it did, they never came as close as they did during sex, even if it was never as close as they tried. Friction and embodiment always pulled them back, snapped them back into their separate selves in the final rush into orgasm, gasping and sweating and straining and glorious for all its imperfection.

Quatre came first, head and shoulders bowed, white knuckled and shuddering, panting and chanting Trowa's name. Quatre's pleasure licked along the edges of Trowa's impelling him to thrust deeply one last time and be swept along in the undertow. And he saw it then, naked in a bright flash, the emptiness driving his need to leave. It was the place Quatre could never reach, could never fill within him, could never feel or see or know no matter how they came together. It was the essential isolation of the individual, the place Trowa alone could seek and fill for himself. He understood. Within that instant of his own, he felt the dawn of Quatre's comprehension. Quatre did, after all, have those empty spaces within him, too, and Quatre already knew well the loneliness in aspects of his own life, the things he had to accomplish and overcome within himself and by himself.

When Quatre lifted his head to look into Trowa's open eyes, he opened his mouth to speak, but there were no words he needed to say. Trowa could feel his acceptance, renewed and sincere, resting easily in the lingering ether between them.

"I know," Trowa said, before Quatre rallied his breath. “I _know_.” He pulled Quatre down to rest upon his chest as Quatre lifted himself enough for Trowa's softening cock to slip free. He relished the lassitude washing over him, the solid heavy warmth of Quatre relaxing into his embrace, the small movements of his body as he shifted to find the most comfortable fit, his slowing heart and drying sweat, the fading tremors of their sex. The fading echo of intimacy.

After a time, Quatre did speak, "Promise me something, Trowa?"

"I-" Trowa stopped himself from reflexively saying he couldn't. He wasn't a soldier anymore. Now, a promise he could keep. "What's that?" he asked, sliding his fingers through Quatre's hair, relaxing his palm against the arc of Quatre's skull. He pressed his lips to the top of Quatre's head.

"That one day," Quatre said as he rubbed his cheek against Trowa's breastbone, "you'll come home to me."

"Home," Trowa murmured against the crown of Quatre's head. It still didn't feel like the right word, but maybe it would become the right word, not for this place, but for this heart beating above his. When he felt the truth of it, of course it would end here; it had already ended here: there was no other possible destination. He was certain it would be Quatre in the end. Which didn't help him understand the fullness of the task ahead, only that he had an inkling of the path and faith that it would bring him back. Perhaps he had to remember all his steps, retrace the winding littered trail of a half-forgotten life to find out why it had brought him so irrevocably _here_ , but here it led, and so here must be, if not now, then _then_ : home.

Trowa coaxed Quatre to lift his head and moved both hands to touch Quatre's face, framing his cheekbones and jaw with grazing fingertips. "I will come home," he said. "To you. I promise."

 

 **the end**


End file.
